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Children grow up so fast it is easy to forget that they are still so little. Verso can run now, sometimes overtaking Monoco in bursts; he makes jokes; his fingers are stretching into smoother arpeggios on the piano; he knows how to add and subtract numbers; he is starting to know how to add and subtract colours; he is too heavy for Aline to carry longer than five seconds. At this age, they have emerged from the clumsiness and fragility of the toddler years, and it is easy to see them as shrunken adults. Aline knows better—mostly from previous (precious) experience (experiments) with Clea, and Verso will not let her forget either: he still insists on sleeping with the lights on, and either (or even better, both) of his parents to stay with him until he finally drifts off to sleep to turn off the lights.
And yet, even though his body stretches longer and his hair grows thicker, and they go through another cycle of new clothes for him, and his feet are starting to touch the bed frame, he is taking longer and longer to fall asleep. He tosses and turns, and he scrambles for their hands, and he springs up from the bed to check if they’re still there.
Aline knows he is a storm inside, swirling with the many facets he already has, and will only continue to develop.
It is her turn today to accompany him. She has willingly and happily volunteered herself for this cause as she knows her husband has been throwing every last bit of himself into completing his Canvas commission frantically before its deadline. (Aline thinks he could have stopped days ago, but they both share a stubbornly solid belief that Art is living and Creation is continuous and has no definite end: a Canvas is only done when their brushes are pried out of their hands and the Canvas wheeled out by someone else—or legal and contractual obligations). She has always been the Council’s loudest and strongest advocate for being mindful of the cost that Painters pay for painting (the other committee members think it’s because she is the sole woman on the Council; in truth it is because she has seen too many talented and cherished lives and families lost to the heavy toils of the Arts and may be the sole person on the Council who refuses to ignore such harm to their community and profession), and she certainly will make sure that Renoir has the time and space he needs to recover from his work.
Verso is still awake. His hand dangles down from the bed to stroke Monoco, who has long given in to a peaceful slumber with the occasional snores. Aline closes Aventures d’Alice au pays des merveilles and strokes his other hand. They’ve read every children’s story books they can find to him. They’ve tried teaching him other methods such as counting or painting sheep in his head. One promising method was teaching him to play simple soothing melodies on the piano, and then asking him to play it in his head to drift off to. They started to see his little fingers twitch under his blanket, playing imaginary keys to the songs in his head. And then he started staying up longer and later on the piano—every day he bursts with new melodies and he has to get them out of his head and onto the keys, and the melodies have changed from soothing simple lullabies to a childish sketch of heart-raising allegros, or sometimes even the beginnings of dissonant sonatas. One would think he may at least tire himself out into a faster sleep after all this musical exercise, and yet he stays up longer, tossing and turning and humming imaginary tunes, fingers drumming those notes in turn.
And Aline can see all this, because her son’s bedroom is so flooded with light that she can no longer see night outside the windows from the sheer amount of glow reflected back to her.
“My love,” says Aline, gently shifting her weight on the bed to lean forward and brush his forehead, “maybe you can fall asleep more easily if we turn off all the lights in this room.”
“No!” yelps Verso immediately.
“Why not?”
“It will be too dark.”
“It won’t be pitch blackness,” says Aline, “the moon is bright—sometimes so bright Clea cannot sleep without the curtains shut. It will keep the room from being too dark.”
He shakes his head, eyes wide above the blanket. “Too dark.”
She decides to pivot. “And what’s wrong with the dark? What purpose is there to fear it?”
Verso sinks deeper into the blanket, but his eyes are anchored in hers. “Bad things can lurk in the dark,” he whispers. “Bad feelings too.”
Aline points to the folds of the blanket above his chest, and traces its valleys with her finger as if she’s painting in the shadows. “Darkness exists here now too, all around us.” She in turn points to the islands of shadow under his bed, under Monoco, under the desk. “Remember what we do when we paint? Light and dark are our fundamental tools to suggest forms, creation, life.”
“I know that,” mutters Verso. “But right now there’s still light to keep the darkness at bay, Maman. But if you turn off the lights and I’m alone, then it becomes too dark and…“
He scrunches his face, trying to think of words to describe the tempest in him.
“… and then I fear I’ll … I’ll get lost.”
Aline’s heart sinks because they had jokingly hoped that their second child would not be another Clea—their eldest conquers everything life has presented to her with confidence and competence, a trait both still think she inherits from the other. Veni Vidi Veci. Verso shares Clea’s delight in the wonders of the world, but unlike Clea who developed her armour and boundaries at a precocious age, Verso’s boundaries are like wet edges through which the world bleeds into him; he is like a fruit with a hard shell whose gentle core is too easily bruised.
Maybe that was what her husband was like as a child, maybe that was the price of being too kind and too perceptive to the world around you. When she met him, Renoir too held it all inside, always the saviour who never thought he needed saving, never thought he was worth saving. (And every day she is grateful that he has let her in, that he has let her save him and love him.)
Verso should not have to go through that.
“You will not be lost in the darkness—it can never consume you, Verso,” says Aline, “remember, everything is light and shadows, and so are you. There’s light within you the dark can never take away.”
Verso shook his head again “Don’t be silly, Maman, I’m not … I don’t have light! I don’t glow—I can’t! I’m not a firefly.”
(Aline suddenly thinks of how Renoir would have loved to be here given his fondness for metaphors and especially using them to communicate with his children.)
She shifts closer so that she’s by his side and can hold him around his shoulders. “Sometimes I think you do glow, my love,” she chuckles, “like when you play your favourite songs on the piano; when Monoco chases you and tackles you to the grass; when you make your jokes and you see us laugh at them—“
(“Not Clea,” mutters Verso. “She laughs at me, not at my jokes.”
“That’s not true, she loves your jokes,” says Aline too quickly, “half of them, at least.” That is still closer to a white lie than the truth.
Verso sighs, but he lets her go on as he leans more weight into her side.)
“—when we go to the train stations; when we ride on trains; when you first smell the freshly baked Vinnesoire on Sunday morning when we go to town. You glow like the sun then. Do you remember how it feels when you glow?”
Verso sits up on his bed and touches his chest gingerly. His pale blue eyes, his father’s eyes, gleam in the bright lights of the room. He closes his eyes. “Warm,” he says finally, “it radiates out from here.” He looks up at her. “Is that my light?”
She reaches out for his hand, her thumb caressing its back. Even now as a little boy his fingers have the making of an artist, deceptively delicate in their slenderness, but strong and nimble. His father’s fingers. (Clea is such an even mix of both of them that Verso turning out to be a blatant copy of Renoir still feels like a divine intervention designed to make a few gods chuckle).
“You’re a Painter, Verso. Do you want to try describing what that light inside you is like?”
His eyes shut close again, his breathing slow down. “Warm,” he says again, “warm like the morning sun on my face after a cold long night, like a hug after a bad dream, like cuddling Monoco after dinner.” His fingers curl around hers. “The light is … cuddly! Can it be cuddly?”
Aline is now very certain Renoir would be upset for not being here. “Yes,” she says, even though her bread and butter is realism and her goal has always been to make her audience see things as what they are and not as what they want them to be. “Of course it can be.”
“It’s a ‘he’ then,” says Verso, “warm and cuddly and he has a big tummy where I can store my favourite rocks—“
(Aline’s eyes flit to the edge of the bed frame; her children have started collecting rocks recently, Clea proclaiming that she has the most beautiful and most powerful rocks, while Verso tries to imbue his with magical powers by writing his own imaginary runes on them. Aline knows that he stores his under his bed, and she has been wondering at what point she should be to worried about them being tripping hazards, or cause the servants too much grief while cleaning his room.)
“—and he is going to be strongest ever thing in the world so that he can protect me and you and Papa and Clea from anything!” Verso catches himself, and looks bashfully at her. “And my little sister or brother, when they’re out of your belly.”
Aline gently cups her still small bump. Verso has taken to the news much more positively than Clea, whose response could be summarised with an indifferent “Again?”. Every day he greets her and the growing baby in her with excitement before lamenting at the long wait he must endure before finally meeting them.
Aline squeezes his hand. “Do you want to try drawing it?”
They creep their way towards her atelier, giggling when the floorboards creaked, Monoco circling around their feet, huffing as he hunts for whatever is exciting his humans. The excitement is lost once Verso is faced with the blank paper, and he looks up at her with as blank eyes.
“Warm, cuddly, big tummy for your rocks, and strongest ever,” says Aline, “what does he look like?”
Verso sighs and draws a circle, and then triangular rays jutting out of it. A sun. And then a sun with a face.
“More volume for more rocks,” says Verso as he draws the inflated belly, “more area for more hugs. Very squishy very warm hugs.”
Aline looks over his head, hands patting his small shoulders. He looks up at her, and he seems to brace for the usual criticism she is always generous (and always kindly and constructively so) with.
“It’s lovely, Verso,” she says gently.
“It’s just a sketch, Maman,” says Verso humbly, a little bit taken aback by the unconditional praise. She doesn’t know how to explain to him that she’s here as a mother, and not as a tutor. “See, I even titled it as such.”
The words at the bottom of his drawing say “Une Esquie”. Aline, the mother, is not going to play the tutor’s role and correct his spelling now, just like how she will not correct his lines and shading right now.
“I love it,” insists Aline, “because this is the light within you; your strength, courage, goodness and love.”
Verso lifts the paper towards the nearest lamp and stares at it wordlessly. He turns back to her with a smile that's half impish and half sorry. “He does look silly.”
“Well, you can be silly,” chuckles Aline as she ruffles his hair. “Are you ready to go to bed now? You can keep your Une Esquisse by your side.”
“With the lights off?” whispers Verso.
“How about we keep one lamp on, and I’ll wait for you to go to sleep like usual?”
Verso looks back at his drawing. He clutches it to his chest before looking back up at her.
“I can try with all the lights off,” he whispers again, “but please wait for me to sleep. At least for tonight.”
“My brave boy,” says Aline, pulling him close to her heart.
“I’ll be braver,” mutters Verso, “I will grow my light.”
Verso drifts off to sleep within ten minutes of climbing back into his bed, one hand in Monoco’s fur, and the other still clutching at his drawing, the paper already crumpled in his grasp. Aline’s fingers look for the lamp switches out of habit before she remembers they are already in the dark.
“I was surprised to not find you in bed,” says Renoir hours later in her atelier. He circles his arms around her waist and kisses the back of her neck as greeting. “It is late, mon coeur, and I believe you have an early meeting tomorrow with the mayor.”
“Go to bed, Renoir,” says Aline, leaning back into his warmth and basking in his familiar comforting smell. “Rest.”
He buries his face into her hair. “But I’ll miss you.”
Aline laughs. “I will join you soon, I’m almost done here.”
She feels his weight shift as he peers over her shoulders. “You’re… sewing? Is that a doll?”
“It has been a while since I last sewed,” says Aline, cringing as she remembers the embarrassing number of times she has managed to prick herself with the needle tonight, “but I don’t think I did too badly here.” She lifts up the doll to his eye level. “It’s Verso’s Esquie." She can sense his confusion and she elaborates: "Une esquisse—" ("Oh", gasped Renoir softly) "—of the light within him that will let him be brave in face of the darkness of the world—or at least, his bedroom.”
She turns to see his eyes sparkling despite the fatigue etched around them. “Brilliant,” says Renoir, grinning widely, “this is absolutely wonderful.” He picks up the doll and holds and examines it like it’s a museum specimen before Aline takes it away from him, not wanting him to see the many flaws and imperfections of the cutting and the stitches that have been annoying her this whole time. It is very rare for her to do something she is not effortlessly good at, but she reminds herself again that she is doing this as a mother, not a Painter, not a dancer, not an artist.
“It’s just a draft,” says Aline, “if he likes it, we can get a seamstress to do a better one—“
“Oh, he will love this,” proclaims Renoir confidently, “he’s never going to part from it 1. But Clea—“
“You fear she may be jealous?” says Aline.
Renoir rubs his chin. “I think I can handle Clea 2.”
It took Verso one week to fall asleep in the dark by himself alone; he now comes to wish them good night without waiting for either of them to come along with him. Aline is grateful for the extra time she now has for herself (and her husband) at night. And yet…
Has it only been one week?
It must have been a month. Two? She is once again reminded of the ultimate cruelty that is time’s indifference. Children grow up so fast—he grew up too fast. It was her fault she didn’t indulge in those nights holding his hand waiting for him to fall asleep—it was her fault she let those times slip through her fingers instead of clutching at them like precious pearls.
Wasn’t he just five, six? And now he’s dead, and she is lost in the darkness without his light.
Footnotes:
1: Alicia was a cryer of a baby—she couldn’t be left alone or she would make sure no one in the entire house will sleep. One day Aline found Esquie slipped into her crib, and Verso did not ask for it back until Alicia moved on to other toys and started to learn to sleep in peace.
2: Clea was indeed “handled”. She held no envy or grudge at Verso’s new toy that he carried around everywhere. Renoir told her that Esquie allowed Verso to sleep at night in the dark, and she had laughed and said she never needed dolls to be brave.